The PNB’s eight seats in Congress in 1982 equaled its historic record of 1977, never surpassed since. They turned out to be sterile in the legislature of the most overwhelming majority of the PSOE. Instead, with only five deputies, the jeltzale worked wonders. He conditioned Felipe González in 1993, José María Aznar in 1996 and Mariano Rajoy since 2016, until he dropped him in 2018 in favor of Pedro Sánchez, of whose alliance he is a kind of master beam. There is an arithmetic of nationalist influence in Madrid, but it is mainly in the banks of the PSOE and PP, and now also of coalitions like Sumar, in the needs of the moment. In this way, it is explained that, despite its electoral crisis, independence is currently decisive and that Junts has the key even though one deputy has dropped out.
In the drafting of the 1978 Constitution, the nationalist role was not conditioned by the numerical calculation, but by the political one. But it was not the result of a State approach, but because of the decision of the PSOE to leave one of its two places in the presentation to Miquel Roca, from CiU. In theory it also covered the space of the PNB, despite the fact that, while the Catalan force gave yes to the Constitution, the Basque did not vote.
It was from the 1993 elections, at the beginning of the great bipartisan escalation and in the last legislature of González, that CiU and PNB, led by Jordi Pujol and Xabier Arzalluz, stormed the skies of Madrid from Barcelona and Bilbao. The electoral numbers were not the best for a then very strong CiU, which lost one seat. And the PNB continued with the minimum of five deputies left by the split of Carlos Garaikoetxea.
Nevertheless, in a situation where the PSOE’s pact with Esquerra Unida was impossible, CiU by itself had the key to governability, with the 17 deputies plus the 159 of the PSOE, to which was added the insurance GNP stability. González pledged to advance compliance with the Gernika Statute, still a pending subject as Lehendakari Urkullu periodically reminds, and to cede 15% of personal income tax to the autonomous regions without the fiscal concert system, such as Catalonia. Thus, the policy of the fish in the cave triumphed.
“I have achieved more in 14 days with Aznar than in 13 years with Felipe González”, proclaimed Arzalluz in 1996 about the new agreements, this time with the PP. With 156 seats, 20 short of the absolute majority, Aznar was in the hands of CiU and PNB, despite the fact that he added the addition of Coalició Canària. The arithmetic of Spanish politics, with the two major parties equal and without a hinge of the center like the CDS, caused the traffic of the insulting “Pujol, enano, habla castellano” that was chanted in Carrer Génova, in the comic phrase of Aznar who spoke Catalan in private. From criticizing González’s agreements, he went on to make them and fulfill them more.
Through the agreement with the Majestic hotel in Barcelona, ??CiU obtained 30% of the personal income tax and the transfer of traffic. It was the heyday of the two centre-right nationalist parties, although in the 1996 elections CiU had lost another seat and the PNB was still below minimums. Although some measures were for all the autonomous regions, the concessions of the central government generated rejection in a large part of Spain and perhaps in some layers they began to feed Catalanophobia.
In 2000 Arzalluz’s did regain positions when they rose to seven seats, and CiU continued to lose one deputy each election, but it was already the third largest parliamentary group. It was the same, because the PP had an absolute majority, which was a territorial roller. The same thing happened, on the scale of all nationalism, with the absolute majority of Mariano Rajoy in 2011. It was a new phase of zero influence on governability, even though there were 34 nationalist deputies, which was only exceeded with November 35, 2019, after the judgment of the process.
The 34 deputies from the parties belonging to Catalonia, Euskadi and, to a certain extent, Galicia had been reached after a prodigious increase compared to the 22 in 2008. Despite the weakness of those elections, the most pronounced since the transition, and with Rodríguez Zapatero’s government close to an absolute majority, but with a greatly diminished EU, nationalism had a high influence, through CiU, PNB or BNG. Before, in 2004, with more force, but in the framework of the stormy processing of the Statute in Madrid, ERC had played an essential role.
After crossing the desert of Rajoy’s absolute majority, the PNB was the key to governability from 2016, when the PSOE allowed the investiture of the Galician with Ciutadans and then disagreed with it. In an unsurpassed transformism in nine days of 2018, the PNB approved Rajoy’s budgets and the motion of no confidence that overthrew him. The yes of the 24 nationalist deputies, including those of PDECat, was decisive for the success of the operation, as happened later with the governability during the two mandates of Pedro Sánchez, with the PNB as an essential piece and a pactist ERC in the second legislature.
This until now, that Sánchez needs practically all nationalism again, Junts included. And that these parties have just received the most important punishment for dropping from 10%, which is their historical maximum, to 6.6% due to attrition in Catalonia. But his arithmetic is not the one that commands. There is even on the table the option of the PNB presiding over the Congress, as, for example, the Canarian Coalition proposes.
Towards the 2015 elections there were social gatherings in Madrid who were under the illusion that the new parties would be able to dispense with Basque or Catalan hinges. But since in the era of blogs there has not been an absolute majority so far, the influence has become permanent.
